


Family Reunion

by dratthepopulation



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 17:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7854577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dratthepopulation/pseuds/dratthepopulation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven wants the Crystal Gems and the Barnmates to spend some time together as a sort of family reunion. They wind up at Steven’s house and Steven feels responsible for Lapis' comfort, but he didn't expect Peridot and Pearl's contention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the anon that suggested this prompt! I just started writing this with no planning, so the fic found itself along the way, but I really like where it went. I feel like the ending result feels a little more like an actual episode than a written work, and I'm okay with this!

The warp pad in the distance chimed and echoed against the barn. Lapis jerked her head up from her meepmorp to look warily toward the barn door. “Steven?”

“He wouldn’t be able to hear you,” Peridot stated. “Hold this, I’m going to go check.”

Lapis used a water wing to suspend the plastic straws Peridot was supporting and Peridot padded off and out the door. “YEAH, IT’S STEVEN!” She called back inside.

Lapis dropped everything and came running.

Steven was striding for the barn, grinning. “Hi guys!”

“Steven! It’s so good to see you!” Steven held his arms up for a hug and Lapis snatched him up into her arms, nuzzled her cheek into his hair. He giggled.

“What’s the cause for your arrival?” Peridot asked. “Did you want to see our new morps we’ve been working on?”

“Yeah! But also something else!”

“Is it a good thing?” Lapis pulled back and asked, setting him down.

“It’s a GREAT thing!” Steven jostled his fists. “Connie was telling me about her family reunion she’s at over the weekend, and I wanted to have my own family reunion with the Crystal Gems and you guys!”

“Oh,” Lapis sagged. “Here?”

“Yeah! While it’s still still warm enough for me to sleep over. A-are you okay with that? You don’t look too excited about it… I came here to ask if it’s okay.”

“It’s up to you, Lapis,” Peridot looked up to her. “It’s okay to say no.”

Lapis pulled her mouth to the side and turned back to Steven. “You look like you really want to do it.”

“Well, yeah,” Steven pulled half a smile and a shrug up at her. “All the gems I love the most in one place? Nothing sounds better…”

“Okay,” Lapis agreed, and Steven gasped into a full grin. “But. Can I make a suggestion?”

Steven reigned in his smile. “Of course!”

“Can we do it at your house? If I want to be alone I’d rather just go home than have to tell everyone to get out of my barn. Also that’s a lot of Gems in my barn and even just Peridot is enough Gems in my barn.”

Peridot scoffed.

“That… sounds-- like a great idea! We can make up for the last time I had a sleepover at my house!”

Peridot frowned, “What happened the last time you had a sleepover at your house?”

Steven stared dead ahead at the unseeable horizon; “She showed me a weapon that could shatter a Gem in the blink of an eye, tried to make me use it, called me my mother and a traitor when I didn’t, asked me to shatter her, and then I had to poof her before she could kill me.”

Lapis and Peridot stood still and silent while the last cicadas of the season screamed.

“So when do we leave,” Peridot asked.

“I already asked Pearl if we could do the family reunion, they’re just waiting for me to come back!” Steven smiled, glisten to his eyes coming back.

Unsettled, Lapis ran her fingers through his hair.

“Allow Lapis and I to finish our latest morp,” Peridot stated. “Would you like to see our new works?”

“WOULD I??”

 

~^*+*^~

 

Pearl was making sandwiches in the kitchen when the warp ponged and three figures descended in the pillar of light. “Oh--!”

When the light dissipated, Steven snapped his eyes to “Pearl!” He hopped off the warp pad toward her, Lapis and Peridot slow to follow behind. “We decided to have the sleepover here!”

“Oh, I wish you would have told me!” Pearl complained, “I would have picked up!”

Steven looked around. The house was, as usual, immaculate.

“I’ve never seen the inside of your temple as myself,” Lapis remarked.

“You haven’t?!” Steven balked. “I feel like you have!”

“I was a mirror then.” Lapis’ eyes slid over to Pearl, who recoiled and grimaced.

Pearl broke eye contact to frown and blush and go about cleaning her workspace. “In any case,” Pearl hoped to change the subject, “I bought you marshmallows and chocolate for making some-mores like you wanted, and now there won’t be a fire.”

“Who says we can’t have a fire?” Steven gestured to the fire place.

“What are we lighting on fire?” Amethyst came through the temple door. “Oh. Hey compadres.”

Lapis held up a hand. Peridot held her breath and gave a dizzy smile.

“WE WILL NOT BE LIGHTING ANYTHING ON FIRE,” Pearl announced, “only appropriate materials in the proper locations!”

Garnet stepped out from the temple door. “I can light anything fire.”

“THERE WILL BE NO FIRES!”

“Uhhh,” Steven turned to his guests, “do you guys want to go look for seaglass on the beach?”

“No,” Lapis uttered. “That beach has not been kind to me.”

Steven remembered the mirror, and then Malachite. He winced, afraid of scaring Lapis off. “Oh. Right.”

“Lapis!” Peridot shouted, making Lapis flinch. Peridot took her hand. “Allow me to show you the Steven’s Bathroom in which I was held prisoner!”

“WHY DON’T WE PLAY A GAME?” Steven needed to distract Lapis from being reminded of all the times she was trapped, so she wouldn’t feel like she was being trapped here. He ran to the bookcase and swiped up the first boardgame he found, a copy of the board game Sorry! and held it up to Lapis and Peridot.

Lapis stared at the game and then back up to Steven. “Is this performative meepmorp? Steven, it’s not your fault.”

Steven squinted at Lapis, looked at the game in his hand, and sighed.

“Yo, you guys staying here?" Amethyst asked Peridot, " I thought we were going over to your place.”

“I wanted an easy escape plan,” Lapis stated. Amethyst raised her eyebrows in approval and nodded.

“You can get another chance to appreciate our morps another time, Amethyst,” Peridot announced. “This time, I get to show Lapis the origin of Occupied!”

“WAIT!” Steven urged, and got everyone’s attention. He’d only wanted Lapis’ attention, and now this was public. “A-are you sure you want to see it, Lapis?”

Lapis shrugged. “The place where you kept Peridot imprisoned? Are you worried that it’ll upset me?”

Steven winced his mouth to the side. “You guys are at my house. I just want to make sure you two stay happy and feel really safe here.”

Lapis smiled. “I feel safe because you’re with me, Steven.” She held out her hand to him. “Peridot told me that you made her feel safe while she was in your bathroom.”

Steven took Lapis’ hand and sparkled. “You did?” he asked Peridot.

“W-well, of course,” Peridot stated, blushing. She lead the way toward the bathroom.

 

~^*+*^~

 

It was quiet around the shifting gilded glow of the fireplace.

Lapis liked the chocolate and marshmallows, but said the graham crackers were too hard and dry. She’d taken to putting the roasted marshmallows between two half-slabs of Hershey’s and her hands were slathered in melted chocolate. Nobody wanted to tell her that she was smearing it all over herself and the floor and whatever she touched.

Pearl was silently attempting damage control with a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle. She was going unnoticed until something inside Pearl broke and she grabbed Lapis’ wrists and wiped off her hands.

“I was saving that for later,” Lapis murmured.

“You were getting it everywhere!” Pearl chided quietly.

“I was storing my rations.”

“It’s hard to imagine you fighting a rebellion,” Peridot snickered at Pearl, who lifted one of the strangest offended glares Steven had ever seen on her.

“What do you mean by that?” Pearl challenged.

“How did you manage to battle your pearl instinct to clean long enough to fight on those filthy battlefields? Did Rose’s orders come first?” Peridot was smiling suavely, certain she was making a joke.

Pearl stared at Peridot in a way that made imagining Pearl fighting a rebellion very easy.

Just as Peridot started to look nervous, Garnet’s hand plopped on top of Peridot’s head. “Peridot--”

“No, Garnet,” Pearl shoved her hand out at her, “Let Peridot speak her mind. Peridot, are you implying that I, as a pearl, belonged to Rose Quartz?”

“... Yes???” Peridot flipped out her palms, like it was obvious.

Steven didn’t know what to do or say. He didn’t want any of this to be happening.

“Are you implying,” Pearl continued with a cold fury that Steven had never seen out of her, and it scared him, “that I only fought alongside Rose Quartz because she owned me?”

“The manner in which you’re questioning my implications leads me to believe that I’ve been misinformed.”

“Misinformed??” Pearl’s outrage was starting to bubble to the surface when it was Amethyst who grabbed her shoulder.

“Cool it, P. Homegirl was probably lied to her whole life.”

“Especially about you,” Lapis entered, and all eyes were on her. “Pearl, you were the most threatening thing about the rebellion. The scariest thing all Gems with Pearls could think of was their Pearl treating them like they treated their Pearl. And their Pearls flinging around all their personal information, giving it to the enemy. Imagine what it could do to the Diamonds, if the Crystal Gems had all their secrets.”

Pearl blushed, almost guilty, and flicked her eyes to Steven.

“I’m going to need some more information on the original Crystal Gems,” Peridot stated, face dusted with blue. “Especially if I’m going to be a new Crystal Gem.”

“You’re damn right!” Pearl spat.

“Pearl, whoa whoa, Steven’s innocence!” Amethyst almost laughed. Pearl smacked her hand over her mouth, mortified. “I’m joking, girl! Steven’s innocence has been dead for like a year.”

“Steven is an unsulliable cherub!” Pearl grabbed Steven and hugged him protectively. Steven was limp with resignation to Amethyst’s truth in Pearl’s arms.

“Peridot,” Garnet addressed, “What were you told about the Crystal Gems?”

“Not much,” Peridot admitted. “The first I’d heard of you was when I was briefed before coming to Earth to uh… destroy you. I learned a bit more when…” Peridot smeared an infinitely guilty look to Lapis.

“When she interrogated me about your location,” Lapis continued for her.

“I was told that the Crystal Gems lead the rebellion against Homeworld five thousand three hundred years ago. I was told that Rose Quartz lead it, that her form was different now, and that the only surviving members were a permafusion titled Garnet, a Pearl, and a malformed Amethyst. That’s all I was told.”

The group was quiet.

“I was never actually in the rebellion?” Amethyst clarified, “I was found in the Kindergarten afterward.”

“How old are you, Peridot?” Steven asked.

“How old am I? Are you asking when I was made? To calculate it in the number of times Earth has made a revolution around its star like you humans like to measure time, I was made… around five years ago.”

“You’re five?!” Steven shouted.

“I’m facet-2f5l cut-5xg?” Peridot answered, confused.

“And you never once heard of the rebellion while you were on Homeworld?” Garnet asked.

Peridot shook her head. “Most of my time was being instructed on the the technology I’d be using to facilitate the Cluster’s final stages, and implementing it. There was no reason why I would need to know anything about Earth’s history with Homeworld, because Earth wasn’t going to exist for very much longer and it was my job to make that happen.” She looked up and around at the eyes on her. “Obviously I know more about the rebellion now! I just… don’t know any particular events. Or the group hierarchy, evidently,” Peridot flopped a hand out at Pearl.

“There was no hierarchy,” Pearl urged. “The Crystal Gems were all free gems, who regarded each other with equal respect!”

“So I see. Then why did you join the rebellion, if you didn’t belong to Rose? Who did you belong to?”

“Nobody!” Pearl blurted.

“When you told me that the first time, I assumed it was because Rose Quartz was gone.”

“I never belonged to her!”

“You act like you belonged to Rose Quartz.”

“I DIDN’T--...” Pearl choked up. “I never--” Her face crumpled and she covered her mouth and turned away.

Steven grabbed Pearl’s free hand and held it. The silence in the room pulled and buzzed. He felt like this was his fault and had no idea how to fix it.

Peridot’s mouth popped open, her eyebrows pinched together. “Why are you crying?”

Steven squeezed Pearl’s hand and turned to Peridot, who looked to him in desperate confusion. “Peridot…”

“No,” Pearl croaked. She sniffed and wiped her eyes, turned back toward the group. “I want to explain myself. You wanted to know the history of the Crystal Gems, didn’t you?” She addressed Peridot, who nodded slow and small. “Heh, well, now that Rose is gone, that makes me the original Crystal Gem.

“Yes, I left the original Gem that had claim to me. Rose helped me do that. She reinforced in me the idea that the Gem never owned me. She reminded me that it’s not possible to own someone else. She told me that I wasn’t what Homeworld said a Pearl was, I was whatever I wanted to be. I could do whatever I wanted to do. And I wanted to thank Rose for showing me what I could be. I wanted to help her show as many Gems as possible the same thing she showed me. And I wanted, as my own choice, to devote my life to her.

“I knew that I was falling back into behaviors that Homeworld said Pearls were built for. I knew that, and I knew exactly what Rose would say about it, but I couldn’t help myself. Rose was… She made it so easy to listen to her. To help her. To follow her. She gave me every reason in the universe to want to be beside her, always, doing whatever she wanted me to do. She treasured me… She made me feel… not only that I was appreciated, which isn’t something I’d ever felt before, but… like I was needed. In… moments, of affection…” Pearl struggled to keep talking through the vice grip her tears held on her throat, but she pushed through, eyebrows clenching together, “sh-she called me… her pearl, but I-- she was my Rose. In-n my mind, she didn’t own me… I wasn’t her Pearl, like homeworld has it-- we belonged to each other. We relied on each other. We needed each other.

“Unlike a Pearl, I was fierce, and unrelenting, and I fought and fought and fought. Unlike a Quartz, she treated me with-- such tenderness, and facilitation, and she listened to my strategies and proposals… We adored and respected each other for the ways we defied everything Homeworld stood for. I regarded her with higher esteem above me because she was the Rose Quartz that took on the Diamond Authority. Because she had the warm charisma and compassionate words that opened up every single Crystal Gem to their full potential like she had me. Because she never, never once, made me feel like anything less than the most important Gem in the galaxy.

“And that’s why I act like I belonged to Rose Quartz. Because we belonged to each other. Because we couldn’t have started a revolution without each other.”

It was quiet, but the silence was different now. The contemplative understanding on Peridot’s face as her eyes scoured Pearl gave it grace.

Peridot’s face tightened when she swallowed. “Pearl.”

“Yes?” Pearl stoically wiped the tears off her face with a regal touch.

“Thank you for telling me.” Peridot dropped her eyes to her hands in her lap, then to Lapis, who looked Peridot over and gave a ghost of an admiring smile.

Pearl regarded Peridot, shoulders relaxing. “You’re very welcome, Peridot.”

“Welcome to the club, P-dot,” Amethyst nudged Peridot’s arm. Peridot swayed with it and gave Amethyst a short-lived guilty smile before turning a heavy look into the fire.

Lapis reached for the chocolate and Pearl smacked her hand.

 

~^*+*^~

 

With Peridot and Lapis gone, the past couple of days had seemed quieter. While Amethyst and Garnet looked for seaglass on the beach with Steven, Pearl was inside folding Steven’s laundry. She had the door open to let the kind September breeze carry Steven’s laughter into the temple to her. From the sound of it, Amethyst had pushed him into the water, which meant more laundry for Pearl, but Pearl chuckled along with Steven’s peals of laughter. From this distance, he sounded so much like… She looked up at the portrait of Rose above the door.

The warp pad chimed, and for a second, Pearl panicked. All the gems on Earth were right outside-- who-- she whipped around and found Peridot. That’s right. She had to remind herself of the past two years. How things have changed, because of Steven.

“As Steven says, uh, knock knock!” Peridot smiled shyly. “I’m glad you’re here,” she stepped forward. “I want to show you something.”

This was an odd thing, Peridot showing up of her own volition, alone. “Is something wrong?” Pearl asked.

“Does something have to be wrong to see me?”

“I don’t suppose it does, anymore.” Pearl finished folding the shirt she was working on and stood. “It’s simply out of the ordinary. What would you like me to see?”

“You’ll have to come with me to the barn. It’s a surprise.”

“A surprise. For me?” Pearl smiled.

“You’ll find out shortly,” Peridot’s smile back was coy and proud. She bowed with her arms out toward the warp pad.

Pearl perked up and echoed Peridot’s expression. She straightened her back and strode onto the warp pad like royalty, Peridot following behind her. They warped to the field by the barn together.

When they arrived, Peridot pushed the door of the unoccupied barn all the way open and rushed inside ahead of Pearl. In the middle of the floorspace was a structure about as tall as Pearl under a Pueblo blanket.

Peridot stopped beside it, prepared with her hands gripping the blanket and anticipation in her face. “Are you ready?”

Pearl found herself pleasantly excited. She settled in in front of the structure and gestured with her hands out. “Let’s see it.”

Peridot whisked the blanket off. There stood a lean iridescent geode from Mask Island, about 5 feet tall, with thick metal wiring wrapped in barbed wire constricting it, digging into the rock and exposed quartz. The wires terminated up top in a double-flowered rose blossom the size of a basketball sculpted from sheets of raw aluminum, each petal torched at high heat to anodize it into a rainbow gradient.

Peridot stood, proud and somber, showcasing it with her hands. “I call it, ‘My Beautiful Rose, We’re All We Have, We’re All We Need.’ It represents the simultaneous bondage and freedom of two people devoted to one another. I was inspired your account of your feelings for Rose Quartz.” Peridot looked at her sculpture. “I’m not completely happy with it. I don’t think it’s possible to accurately portray how I felt when you told me your history. But I think it’s because it’s not my story. So, this morp is yours. I hope you treasure it and a ‘wow thanks’ would suffice, but since it is a gift, but you can do whatever you want with it.” Peridot tore her eyes away from her sculpture to Pearl and her face plummeted.

Pearl shook with her hand clamped over her mouth, tears flooding her eyes and spilling over her fingers.

Peridot struggled for words in her panic. “Why are you crying?! Is it horrible? Do you hate it?!”

Pearl kneeled in front of Peridot and threw her arms around her. She sniffled beside Peridot’s ear and caught her breath, found her broken voice. “Wow, thanks.”

“S-so you like it?” Peridot stammered out, hands hovering above Pearl’s back.

“Oh Peridot, I treasure it.”


End file.
